1

Paradox of Happiness
Ben Eggleston

The paradox of happiness is the puzzling but apparently inescapable fact that
regarding happiness as the sole ultimately valuable end or objective, and acting
accordingly, often results in less happiness than results from regarding other goods
as ultimately valuable (and acting accordingly). That is, in many circumstances,
happiness is more effectively achieved when other objectives are regarded as worth
pursuing for their own sakes than when happiness alone is regarded as worth
pursuing for its own sake (see happiness; hedonism; intrinsic value). These
other objectives might be regarded as ultimately valuable instead of happiness, or
merely in addition to happiness; but they must be valued for their own sakes, and not
merely as means to the achievement of happiness. These other objectives may
include loving family relationships and friendships, meaningful professional
relationships, immersion in rewarding work, the exercise of skills and abilities,
accomplishments and triumphs, participation in religion or a large cause or
movement, and contributions to one’s culture or nation.
The paradox of happiness can be understood as applying to people individually or
in groups. With respect to people individually, the paradox of happiness is the fact
that any given individual is likely to be less happy if happiness is her sole ultimate
objective than she would be if other goods were among her ultimate objectives. With
respect to groups of people, the paradox of happiness is the fact that any given group
of people, such as a community or a society, is likely to be less happy, collectively, if
happiness is its sole collective ultimate objective than it would be if other goods were
among its collective ultimate objectives.
There are two prominent, mutually compatible explanations for the paradox of
happiness. The first appeals to the claim that when people have choices to make,
they are generally poor judges of their available options’ effects on happiness (both
individual and collective). A proponent of this view might claim, for example, that
people generally overestimate the extent to which additional income will increase
their happiness, and generally underestimate the extent to which a longer commute
between home and work will decrease it. In this view, people are systematically so
inept at making happiness-promoting choices that a surer route to happiness is for
people to aim, when making choices, at objectives other than the promotion of
happiness (Sidgwick 1907: 142; Bradley 1927: 102; Parfit 1984: 5).
The second explanation appeals to the claim that even if people were generally
capable of accurately judging their available options’ effects on happiness, a more
subtle problem would remain. This problem is that, for most people, happiness is
unattainable without several of the goods listed above (friendship, rewarding
work, etc.), and the full realization of these goods typically requires an intensity of

The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Edited by Hugh LaFollette, print pages 3794–3799.
© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee202
2

emotional and affective investment – to the extent of regarding the goods as worth
pursuing for their own sakes – that is impossible for people who regard happiness
alone as worth pursuing for its own sake. According to this explanation, then,
people who regard happiness as the sole ultimate objective can expect to be less
happy than they might otherwise be, not solely because of the bad choices they
will make – though those may be a problem – but also, and more subtly, because
of the impoverished range of options and possibilities from which they will have
the opportunity to choose (Butler 1726: 186, 190–2; Mill 1873: 117; Sidgwick
1907: 136, 405; Hodgson 1967: 58–9, 61; Stocker 1976: 456; Kavka 1978: 291;
Gauthier 1984: 263; Parfit 1984: 6; Railton 1984: 140–1; Elster 1984: 40; Elster
1989: 24).
According to each explanation, the paradox of happiness is ultimately a contingent
matter of empirical psychology. Nevertheless, each explanation seems to capture a
deep truth about human nature. The paradox they explain has significant, if disputed,
implications for ethical theory and other areas of practical philosophy.
In these areas of philosophy, the paradox of happiness is most frequently adduced
in order to criticize theories that regard the maximization of happiness – either for
the agent alone or for multiple individuals – as the criterion of rational action or
right action (depending on the kind of theory being criticized). For example, the
orthodox theory of instrumentally rational action maintains that an act is
instrumentally rational if and only if it maximally advances the agent’s interests (see
egoism). Assuming that a person’s interests can be at least roughly equated with
happiness, it can then be argued that the paradox of happiness makes this theory
self-defeating, in the sense that agents who subscribe to it will be likely to achieve the
theory’s goal of happiness less effectively than agents who subscribe to a nonorthodox
theory of instrumentally rational action (Kavka 1978: 293; Elster 1983: 9; Parfit
1984: 7; Hollis 1998: 17), such as one that regards some of the discrete objectives
listed earlier as ultimate ends, instead of regarding the agent’s interests or happiness
as the sole ultimate end, with other objectives being valuable (if at all) only as means
to that end.
The challenge posed by the paradox to this theory of instrumentally rational
action is paralleled by challenges posed by the paradox to two ethical theories,
ethical egoism and utilitarianism. Ethical egoism maintains that an act is right if and
only if it maximally advances the agent’s interests, and thus is identical to the theory
just discussed except that it is a theory of morality rather than instrumental
rationality. As a result, it is vulnerable to the same charge of self-defeat. Similar
claims are often made about utilitarianism (see utilitarianism; consequen-
tialism), standard versions of which maintain that an act is right if and only if it
maximizes the well-being of all sentient beings (Hodgson 1967: 3, 60; Stocker 1976:
461; Parfit 1984: 27–8). Whereas the charge of self-defeat against the two theories
just discussed rests on the individual form of the paradox of happiness, the charge of
self-defeat against utilitarianism rests on the collective form of the paradox. Still, the
basic contours of the charge are the same: utilitarianism is self-defeating in the sense
that agents who subscribe to it will be likely to achieve the theory’s goal of maximizing
 3

well-being less effectively than agents who subscribe to an alternative ethical theory
such as Kantianism, social contractarianism, or commonsense morality.
In this way, the paradox of happiness makes theories that prescribe the
maximization of happiness vulnerable to the charge of being self-defeating. The
force of this charge may be contested, however, with a cluster of considerations that
advocates of such theories often marshal in defense of them. First, it may be pointed
out that for a theory to be self-defeating in the sense employed above is not for the
theory to imply its own falsity (which would, admittedly, be damaging). Nor does
self-defeat amount to the disproof of any claim of the theory, since theories criti-
cized for being self-defeating often take no position regarding the consequences of
people generally subscribing to them. Instead, for a theory to be self-defeating in the
sense employed above means something decidedly less discrediting – namely, that,
given human beings as they are actually constituted, people who pursue the theory’s
sole ultimate objective single-mindedly often achieve that objective less effectively
than other people. So a theory can be self-defeating because of an accident of human
psychology, rather than because of any defect internal to the theory itself. On this
view, the paradox of happiness may capture a genuine fact about human nature –
one with important practical implications – but it has no bearing on theoretical
projects claiming that happiness must, in the last analysis, be acknowledged as the
foundation of morality or instrumental rationality (Hare 1981: 38; Scheffler 1982:
46; Kagan 1989: 37).
Although advocates of theories prescribing the maximization of happiness typically
maintain that the preceding argument should be an adequate defense against the
charge of self-defeat as a matter of principle, they typically add that their theories also
respond constructively to the problems that the paradox of happiness causes in prac-
tice. For example, given that utilitarianism prescribes the maximization of happiness,
it also prescribes that agents shape their personal aims, values, and decision-making
procedures in whatever way will best promote the maximization of happiness.
Accordingly, utilitarianism may, because of the paradox of happiness, prescribe that
agents include things other than happiness among their ultimate objectives. In doing
so, it might recommend either of two strategies, depending on which would better
promote the maximization of happiness. Each strategy, however, has a corresponding
shortcoming, making the choice between them a trade-off.
The first strategy is for agents to keep happiness in mind as their regulative
objective that helps them calibrate the intensity of their commitments to other goods
that they also regard as ultimate objectives (Hare 1981: 49–52; Railton 1984: 153–4).
The main shortcoming of this strategy is that if agents keep happiness in mind as
their regulative objective, they might remain vulnerable to the paradox of happiness.
For that paradox might plausibly be thought to arise not only in many cases in which
happiness is an agent’s sole ultimate objective, but also, more generally, in many
cases in which happiness is the preeminent value in an agent’s decision-making pro-
cedure (even if it is not the agent’s sole ultimate objective). In light of this considera-
tion, this strategy might plausibly be regarded as missing the point of the paradox of
happiness, and thus as equally vulnerable to it (Williams 1988: 190).
4

The second strategy is for agents to hold goods other than happiness in such high
esteem, as ultimate objectives, that happiness, assuming it is still retained at all as an
ultimate objective, has no privileged status relative to other ultimate objectives.
In short, utilitarianism might be “self-effacing” (Parfit 1984: 23–4, 40–3). The main
shortcoming of this strategy is that if agents do not keep happiness in mind as their
regulative objective, new complications ensue. One complication is that if a theory
prescribing the maximization of happiness directs agents not to regard happiness as
having any privileged status in their decision-making procedures – and thus, in effect,
directs them to forget the theory altogether – then this seems to open a troublingly
wide chasm between the substance of the theory and the kind of thinking it directs
agents to engage in. Another complication is more practical. In particular, this
strategy is risky to implement, because if an agent decides to revise her values with
the aim of making them maximally conducive to happiness, then she faces a difficult
task, for there are many ways in which she could do it sub-optimally, but only one way
(or perhaps a few ways) in which she could do it optimally. And if the way she chooses
involves (as is characteristic of this second strategy) ceasing to regard happiness as a
regulative objective, then she has only one chance to get this transformation right.
For once she ceases to regard happiness as a regulative objective, then the maximization
of happiness will no longer function for her as a goal in the light of which she might
monitor, critically assess, and periodically tweak her decision-making procedure.
Such ongoing oversight and revision might still occur, but it will be guided by
whatever other objectives have gained ascendancy in her value system – not happiness.
So this strategy is risky to implement because of the difficulty of getting it right the
first time and the probable lack of opportunities for repeated attempts.
Further considerations may be introduced in order to address these objections to
the two strategies mentioned, and further objections may then be lodged. Moreover,
the paradox of happiness may give rise to other lines of argument in practical
philosophy than the ones canvassed here. But these are the lines of argument in
which the paradox of happiness has been most influential in historical and
contemporary theorizing about ethics.

See also: consequentialism; egoism; happiness; hedonism; intrinsic

value; utilitarianism

REFERENCES
Bradley, F. H. 1927. Ethical Studies, 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Butler, Joseph 1896 [1726]. The Works of Joseph Butler, D.C.L., vol. 2, ed. W. E. Gladstone.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Elster, Jon 1983. Sour Grapes: Studies in the Subversion of Rationality. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Elster, Jon 1984. Ulysses and the Sirens: Studies in Rationality and Irrationality, rev. ed.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 5

Elster, Jon 1989. Nuts and Bolts for the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Gauthier, David 1990 [1984]. “The Incompleat Egoist,” in David Gauthier (ed.), Moral
Dealing: Contract, Ethics, and Reason. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
pp. 234–73.
Hare, R. M. 1981. Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Hodgson, D. H. 1967. Consequences of Utilitarianism: A Study in Normative Ethics and Legal
Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hollis, Martin 1998. Trust within Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kagan, Shelly 1989. The Limits of Morality. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kavka, Gregory 1978. “Some Paradoxes of Deterrence,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 75,
pp. 285–302.
Mill, John Stuart 1981 [1873]. “Autobiography,” in John M. Robson and Jack Stillinger (eds.),
Autobiography and Literary Essays, vol. 1 of Collected Works of John Stuart Mill. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, pp. 1–290.
Parfit, Derek 1984. Reasons and Persons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Railton, Peter 1984. “Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of Morality,” Philosophy
and Public Affairs, vol. 13, pp. 134–71.
Scheffler, Samuel 1982. The Rejection of Consequentialism: A Philosophical Investigation of
the Considerations Underlying Rival Moral Conceptions. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Sidgwick, Henry 1907. The Methods of Ethics, 7th ed. London: Macmillan.
Stocker, Michael 1976. “The Schizophrenia of Modern Ethical Theories,” Journal of Philosophy,
vol. 73, pp. 453–66.
Williams, Bernard 1988. “The Structure of Hare’s Theory,” in Douglas Seanor and N. Fotion
(eds.), Hare and Critics: Essays on Moral Thinking. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
pp. 185–96.

FURTHER READINGS
Adams, R. M. 1976. “Motive Utilitarianism,” Journal of Philosophy, vol. 73, pp. 467–81.
Frey, R. G. 2000. “Act-Utilitarianism,” in Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Ethical
Theory. Malden: Blackwell, pp. 165–82.
Hare, R. M. 1989 [1973]. “Principles,” in R. M. Hare (ed.), Essays in Ethical Theory. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, pp. 49–65.
Pettit, Philip 1988. “The Paradox of Loyalty,” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 25,
pp. 163–71.
Russell, Bertrand 1930. The Conquest of Happiness. New York: H. Liveright.
Woodcock, Scott 2010. “Moral Schizophrenia and the Paradox of Friendship,” Utilitas,
vol. 22, pp. 1–25.